Around the Country

BCS (don't call it "National") Championship Game tonight, so we'll keep the basketball coverage a little shorter than usual.

First, Luke Winn calls out Notre Dame's defense and he's absolutely right. We need to defend better. Monday was a little better, holding Georgetown slightly below their average efficiency on offense. We don't need to be top 25 or even top 50 in defense, just need to consistently hold our opponent's below their average. Good job against Georgetown and Ohio State (the offense was the weak link in that loss), not so good against DePaul and St. John's. Let's see how it goes Saturday.

Duke beat Davidson last night. Curry is a fantastic player, but the team is really down from last year. I've never been a big fan of change in my sport-watching routine, so I avoided watching the publicity stunt ESPN pulled with switching the NBA team and Dick Vitale. Leave the pro analysts to their ballhogging and crab dribbling. I'd rather listen to people who actually get excited about sports (even if Dickie V does get pretty annoying).

BC showed off the essence of their sports programs yesterday. First, they fired a very good football coach for looking into a different job opportunity. It's never a good sign when you think your program is better than the people who run it. The opposite is also true (see Charlie Weis' ridiculous buyout). Of course, the basketball team also laid an egg at home against Harvard. Tommy Amaker's a pretty good coach, but you just can't fold like that after such a great upset.

Boston College in a nutshell: exaggerated sense of self-importance and an annoying tendency to play well in big games while caving in gimmies. Hopefully we'll beat them the next two years in football and never play that school again (I'm just a little bitter about our current losing streak).